Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Own It.

Pause the video if you need more time to pick your card, then restart to see the reveal. Scroll down to see your card reading. Please follow the blog so you don’t miss any of the learn-to-read-Tarot and other “my side of the table” written content that will be coming up over the next few months.

Left: Knight of Pentacles. “SUSTAIN” A knight that drops his shield in a battle doesn’t survive for very long. In this case “back to business” does NOT mean back to the way things were before. It means put on your big kid underwear and keep going, even if you are exhausted to the bone. Last month was alarms and claxons and responding to a real life and death emergency, collectively speaking. This isn’t recovery. This is keep going. Keep your guard up. This card is letting us know this isn’t close to over. We needed a period of mobilization, freak-out, and adjustment, without judgement. Now is the time to be adjusted already and sustain our response. Forget before. It’s time go get to the business of the business at hand. Energies are shifting from an all out sprint to a sustained, marathon endurance pace.

Center: Nine of Wands. Read the Knight of Pentacles, this is basically the same message on a slightly less literal and more mental/emotional level. Energies are shifting, but stay on guard. If you are empathic or otherwise energy sensitive, continue to set strong boundaries. Don’t be a victim. Be responsible. Do the self-care you need to sustain through this middle phase. There is no “back to normal.” Do what you need to do to be in a good head space right here, right now.

Right: The Star. “Thank the things that got you this far” This is also has a bit of a mental/emotional/spiritual spin to it, although it is important to know the physical realm people and resources that have helped you…and the things that can and will help you still. Pay it forward as best as you can both now and later. Less literally, think about the things that got you through the initial response and change and is helping you to sustain as we begin the middle of unknowable duration. What ideas, beliefs, people and practices have gotten you this far? What old beliefs that “should” be your rock and your shelter have crubled to dust under the weight of everything? What beliefs have supported and sustained you? What new shining star guides you when the world seems to spin out from under you? Forget before. What ideas and beliefs have proven their worth under these very real stresses be they old or new?

Buckaroo Bonzai said “No matter where you go, there you are.” Well, here we are. It isn’t like it was, but it is what we have. Now it is time to own what we do with it.

Today’s Tarot w/ Zombie Cat: A meeting of the minds

Braaaaiiiiiiinnss – they aren’t just for zombies anymore

It’s true that humans are social creatures. There is something primal about it that probably goes back to wolly mammoth BBQs. In modern times there is some other thread that ties us together other than pure group effort survival (altough some of that is needed nowadays too)

Wherever there is a meeting, there is a meeting of the minds. At a concert, it is the shared enjoyment of music. At a movie itvis the shared experience of images and stories. Pictures and stories don’t have to be called art and literature brain and emotion feeding kinds of things.

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you.” – Carl Sagan

Whether you are reading a book and communing with that unknown author, or chatting it up on facetime with grandma, it is still human interaction on a much needed mental and emotional level, if not the physical one.

During times when our physical beings are kept separate, it is all the more important to connect in a meeting of the minds.

Trust me on that one, because, you know, brains.

Meet Zombie Cat 2020

Hey everyone. I’m Zombie Cat. I poofed into quantum probability collapsed existence back in 2015 after Schrodinger’s experiment and a Menage A Tarot podcast collided in the hooman’s head and came out as a blog post on her old Modern Oracle site. You can read a reprise of the original post here. Both the hooman and I are very grateful for that podcasting experience to say the least.

A few days ago she tossed me the keys to the joint and walked off mumbling something about Mad Max needing cheese ….or maybe it was make a mask and going for groceries. Either way she had a slightly stressed look on her face like she was about ready to go full metal shoulder pads and start singing Tina Turner – badly. I figured that was my clue to take over the Tarot readings for a day or two. I usually only come shambling around at Halloween, but the end of the world as we know it has my attention. I’m back for the duration of the pandemic, to give you all a little break from being all positive and productive and hopeful and all that crazy crap. Some days if you peel off those 5 day old pajamas and take a shower it’s an accomplishment. If you want something thoughtful, diplomatic, kind, calm, reassuring, inspiring or empowering – go get one of the hooman’s readings. That’s not my style. Seeing as I am

a cat and
a zombie

I don’t feel any particular need to sugar coat such things. Despite the fictional undead cat thing, I’m a damn fine Tarot reader. That’s why I usually charge $10 per reading. I’m cutting you people types a break while the lung rot is out there, and my yes or no readings are only $5 (three cards for the price of one) until the end of April. Maybe longer. The hooman said she’s not letting her guard down until someone squirts an FDA approved vaccine in her arm. Meanwhile she is always running around cautioning people about how Tarot doesn’t predict the future, trying to encourage them and show them the power of their choices and all that. I just call ’em as I see ’em. If you want to believe a prediction from an un-dead fictional cartoon cat, who am I to judge? Ask me anything. I’ll give you a straight up yes or no answer guaranteed to contain some words and have a 50% chance of being dead wrong. Any accidental snark or humor is free of charge. All policies and disclaimers apply, caveat emptor, swim at your own risk.

And go wash your hands.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Persist – with STYLE

You know the drill….choose a card. Pause the video if you need some time. Restart it to see the reveal.

Left: Eight of Swords. The thread that connects the 8 in all decks it seems is a pervasive feeling of helplessness or a trapped situation. The Pamela Smith artwork suggests an unconventional, ‘outside the box’ solution, even though that wasn’t, of course, the language of the time. The faintness of the sword image in Thom Pham’s artwork might suggest that the barriers are perhaps mental or self-imposed. In any case, real or imagined, if you are feeling trapped or victimized, think of clever work-arounds rather than brute force bash-throughs. Sometimes life needs a little jerry rigging to make it through the day. Just ask anyone who is old enough that the word MacGyver is a verb.

Center: Five of Swords. Adapt. Challenges are ahead, but if you are stubborn, stuck to principle or habit (be it a literal habit, or a habit of thinking) then the outcome is not as good as if you were able to roll with the punches. I’m not super familiar with the Dark Knight movies, but the Keith Ledger version of the Joker is about as single minded as it gets as I remember it. Things are getting pretty Darwinian. Adapt or die, figuratively speaking.

Right: Seven of Wands. This is a bit of an action hero card. Obyron from Game of Thrones is pictured. Every good action movie has action and conflict, right? Think of the all the pop culture renegade heroes we know and love…Han Solo, Deadpool, Tony Stark, James Kirk, Malcolm Reynolds, heck, the whole Firefly crew…you get the idea. Overcome challenge while letting your individuality show and your freak flag fly. Your greatest individual quirks may well prove to be your greatest individual source of strength just now. So persist and overcome the challenges ahead with humor and with style.

The Craziest Diamond

I’ve been an anime fan since Kimba the White Lion reruns circa 1970.

My daughter is an anime fan too (so proud!) She and I have been watching JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. We’ve made it to season 4 “Diamond Is Unbreakable.” It would take an entire blog to begin to explain this behemoth of a story line, but let’s just say a “stand” is like the personification of a superpower. “Shining Diamond” (the name is a reference to the Pink Floyd song “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”) has a superpower where the things it hits, attacks or destroys reassembles to a changed condition that is better than the original…or it can directly heal wounds and injuries inflicted by others.

What if this ability is an analogy for one possible silver lining in all of this? I’ve been talking with friends and clients about how these pandemic times have been affecting energy sensitive people. What if one silver thread in this terrible dark cloud is a re-alignment on a spiritual or energetic level, akin to Shining Diamond’s healing objects or people who were previously torn apart?

What if our social connections are being stretched thin, even being smashed to bits in order for them to be put together into something new and better? What if we are being separated to make room for new relationships that resonate with our spiritual growth and our hearts rather than social connections of convenience?

It is a common thing for friendships to fade during times of spiritual growth and evolution, especially for people in their 20s and 30s. Old friends drift apart (or blow apart) and new, more attuned connections fill the space left behind. What if this is happening on a global cultural scale? What if we are being pummeled apart in order to be reassembled along like-minded spiritual strata? What if we are being blown out of our old tribes in order to find the tribe that matches our hearts rather than our habits?

I’m not saying that is what is actually happening, but it is an intriguing thought experiment, don’t you think?

There is nothing like a little social distance and time alone to put you face to face with your own heart and mind. Yogis, gurus, monks, shamen and spiritual people of every tradition have deliberately sought this kind of isolation. Stay home orders and social distancing has put us all on our own little mountaintop spiritual retreat. Or it should. It says something tragic about the inner peace of those who can’t make some adjustment at the cost of human lives.

For the fortunate, who have food, shelter, a job to do from home…for those, this is a gift. If, under those fortunate circumstances, “social distancing” is uncomfortable for you, could it be because you are uncomfortable with yourself? If you are uncomfortable in your own company, this is an ideal time to figure out why.

When you are good with you, it is a lot easier to be OK with other people. The popular thing on social media among the uber-positive happy people is to advocate for “self-love”. That seems strong. Why not aim for a little self-OK first? Self-love flirts a little too much with narcissism for my taste. Self-acceptance seems more real to me.

The first step to being OK with others is to be OK with yourself. We are one. We are all connected. Bigotry, hatred and intolerance are twisted forms of self-loathing.

A little time apart might help that. It’s like we are being hit full force by Shining Diamond. We are being blown apart to give us the opportunity to reassemble healed.

Zombie Cat Tarot: Justice

Zombie apocalypse movies are all about the apocalypse, not the zombies. It’s not the zombie’s fault they woke up all corpse-ish and dead and hungry for brains. In a real crisis, it’s the living whose faces fall off and show you what has been inside all along.

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” – Maya Angelou

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Navigate

Video from the TaoCraft Tarot YouTube channel

Left: OK here is today’s pandemic pep talk. More change is on the horizon. It’s a crazy time if you look at things globally or if you are out there in the thick of it doing important work, but everyone else is being asked to hibernate. Hibernators have it easy. Like a bear that was forced to wake up too soon, or a bear asked to hibernate in the summer, you may feel a little off kilter or out of the natural cycle of things. Plod along, grind it out, just keep on staying in your cave and washing your paws. If things can change TO this, it can change FROM this sooner or later.

Center: Ten of Cups. My attention is drawn to the sudden hops that actual grasshoppers make more than long and varied symbolism of grasshoppers that Mr. Andrews writes about in “Animal Wise.” In fact, the energy around this card today reminds me more of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh than a grasshopper. It is also like a gentler version of the “remember to play” aspects of the Fool card that we sometimes see, too. Play hopscotch in the driveway. Spend a little quality time staring out the window. Play a game of Twister. The big picture perspective of the world is still pretty scary, but it is perfectly ok to zoom in to some personal moments. Have a minute of fun and several long minutes taking in and sending out love across the distance. Love can leap anywhere.

Right: The Star. Firefly eh? Good TV show that. I recommend it. But this card reminds me of a different reference. One of my favorites. You’ve heard it before, but it must be a good moment because here it is again all these decades later. Anyone remember “City Slickers” with Billie Crystal and Jack Palance? You could call this idea Curly’s Finger. There is one thing that makes sense out of life … the trick is figuring out what that is. Figure out the one thing that makes sense of it all and you are ahead of the game. It’s only THE one thing if it is YOUR one thing. What makes sense of it all for you? Follow that. Follow the north star, not the finger that points to it.

Today’s Tarot: Bend Don’t Break

It’s still your choice, even on days where it feels like one card is the right thing to do. It’s still your choice whether you would like use this card as a prompt for your own DIY reading or scroll down to the one I’ve written below…or both.

It may not be one of our run on coins cards, but The Fool, reversed, has pandemic advice all over it.

Begin a new journey? Nope – stay your backside at home.

Begin an inner journey? Absolutely! But that is where the reversal comes in. Mr. Andrews describes the cayote on the card as one of the most vlever and adaptable animals. So a reversal here begs the question of where and how you are having problems adapting. Taoist philosophy has a similar idea. If you don’t bend, you could break. Living beings are supple, bendable. Life wants to be clever and adaptable like cayote in order to stay that way. Dead things are rigid, stiff, unbending, brittle, breakable.

This isn’t over. The old ways have to change, else death may follow. Yes, you have to do things differently and think about things differently now. It bests the alternative. Bending is far better than breaking.

Stay safe, stay home. Protect the ones who go to work to protect you by staying home for them.

YouChoose: free Tarot reading four ways

This pandemic is a thing, isn’t it?

Like we talked about last time in “I kinda like it in here. It’s private” the general energies out there have just been buzzing. There is real things to be anxious worried and fearful about, so no surprise the feeling of the time is enough to set nerves on edge in addition to everything else. It is OK if things are pushing your buttons a little bit. Time alone can be maddening or it can be a spiritual retreat, a Tarot reading can be an epiphany or it can be a few minutes of diversion. It is all your choice. You have to do what is right for you. It’s easier to love others when you can love yourself too.

Speaking of which, I loooove doing written email Tarot readings. Always have. I’m perfectly content to sit here in my comfy chair with a cuppa joe and my fuzzy bunny slippers and read Tarot all day long. Now it has the added benefit of being virus fee and stay at home compliant.

It is a tough time for everyone. I don’t have much to offer except this:

Free One card readings HERE. Take your pick between handwritten, typed and video. No appointment needed but only available through the contact form on the special offers page.

Also on the special offers page: Zombie Cat is back with his usual snark, lame humor and a HUGE price reduction. Get three cards for the price of one.

Free Reiki HERE.

All distance email readings have been price reduced until the end of April.

Stay safe. Stay strong. Stay home. (and wash your hands)

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Hang in there, sky puppy.

Left: The Hanged Man. I was surprised to hear there had been social media backlash, even some racist comments made about a wildlife post featuring a bat on social media. There is a certain synchronicity and irony to having bat be the representative animal on the very first card we draw in one of these youtube videos. Fear and anger really do lead to the dark side of human nature. At the same time I think it goes to show that this deck is a good one for these times because it doesn’t pull any punches. Nature isn’t going to dance around our fragile little fee fees. As tragic, stressful and devestating as this pandemic is, it is also a gift from Nature. Bats are connected to not only the Hanged Man from the Tarot deck, but also transformation through isolation, the shaman’s journey. The pandemic is forcing us inside, literally and figuratively. It may well uncover the very worst of us. Only by facing the worst of ourselves can those things be transformed. Bats have, in that way, given us a gift and an opportunity. Besides, it isn’t the bat’s fault that human leader have failed so very miserably. So don’t hate on the sky puppies!

Center: Seven of Wands. I’ve been a die hard devotee of Ted Andrews’ work ever since Animal Speak was published around the time I started working with Tarot, ’93-ish if memory serves. Initially, I did not the connection between reptiles and wands and the element of fire and didn’t aesthetically appreciate it until Harry Potter came along with dragons, Hagrid and Norbert. But then, show could blame a cold blooded critter for wanting to cozy up to a fireplace, especially on a chilly rainy spring day like we are having (I looooove this kind of weather, by the way) Here again, as with the Hanged man, we are asked to turn inward, and to face our inner selves. In this particular case, Mr. Andrews associated Toad and the seven of wands with inner strength and inner resourcefulness. There is both the advice of staring yourself in the soul during these isolated times and getting friendly with the person you find…and the reassurance that the person you find is stronger than you might think.

Right: Three of Pentacles. Hello Pentacles. They are still here…the pandemic is still here. Keep doing what practically needs done to stay as safe and healthy as you possible can. Both here and in other decks the three of coins is connectied to skill and craftmanship. This card feels like pure advice. Do something productive today to help you keep on keeping on. Anything counts. Take a nap. Play a little. Let yourself stop worrying for five minutes. Change those 3 day pajamas. Anything. You don’t have to write King Lear or solve quantum physics. Otters are reknown for their playfulness and for attentiveness to their young. Play, take care of someone (including yourself) or try not to let homeschooling drive you too far up the wall.

Hang in there, sky puppy!